My name is Marc Lebel, I grew up in the industrialized city of Lowell Massachusetts. When I was 17, my father had brought the news to me that all of our money in the bank was gone and that he had lost his job working at the Saco-Lowell Machine shops because the yard was closing down and they were selling off all their textile machines to southern textile mills. I never expected he would lose his job after working for the same company for over 20 years. He and my mother moved from Canada to find work in Lowell. My mother worked in the mills making clothes and my father learned to build shuttle and spinning machines. They were able to live fairly well, save a little money and raise a family. My life as I knew it seemed to change overnight. A month had passed by and dad was struggling to make money to put food on the table. There was no work to be found, not even manual labor. More and more people were losing their jobs. My mother was able to get a little money repairing clothes, but not enough to support our family. Among my friends, a majority of them were in the same situation as me. We would often talk about possible ways we could make money. One day my best friend Brian O’Callaghan told me that he planned to move out West to start his own life and look for a job. I had never imagined leaving my family until I received a letter from Brian saying that he was doing well living with his Uncle in Arizona working in the copper mines. He mentioned that he was making money and much happier out there. It was then I decided I had to move out, heck nothing was too big for a guy like me. I decided to jump on the next train and get off wherever it stopped. Looking for a job was next on my list, but then again I did not even know how to ride the rails yet, I was in for a surprise. I was shocked to see kids the same age as me wearing beat up clothes hopping freights with sun burnt necks and satchels on their backs. If they had been on the rails a while they even started to look old, the degree of stink and dirt was the only true indicator of age. A lot of kids were banged up pretty bad from riding the rails and some were even permanently deformed. I had a few conversations with these kids; they said that they had been looking for jobs for a few months and barely eating enough food to survive. Some had been robbed and beaten. The older guys had secrets such as the kind of food you could find without a nickel in your pocket, and how to survive when the yards were so full of bulls you had to camp out for three days just to get a move on. I started to question whether I really wanted to follow through with my plan of traveling alone and possibly being in the same situation as them. I decided that it was too late to turn back and would follow through with my plan. I really didn’t want to go home and be a burden to my parents, they had enough problems. One night, I met a strong intelligent man named “Jumping Jim” in the Pittsburgh rail yard. He was a black man with a white beard from North Carolina. He told me that he was looking for work in the North because there were no jobs in the South and it was not worth begging for food or shelter because people in the south were not open to letting a black man stay in their homes. At that point it sounded like a good idea to me to look for work in the South because there was less competition. However, I was pretty scared after hearing so many stories of people searching for work and getting hurt in the process. I had started to build a relationship with Jim, and decided to stick with him because he became sort of like a fatherly figure and had been riding the rails for a while. He taught me how to avoid getting caught riding rails and where to look for work. He had a knack for giving the bulls the slip in the yards. One time we were holed up in a potato freight car and we heard the bull open the next car where two other guys were hiding. He pulled them out and beat half the teeth out of a kid who could not have been more than a year older than me. The other one ran. Jim and I hid in a sack and when the ole’ bull came knocking we were still as a rock. Jim saved my life more than a couple times. As our relationship grew stronger, I began to look after him. He could not take the starving as well as I could. When we got out West, we spent two nights in Frisco without a bite to eat. The third night my ribs were poking through and he gets to hollering about his sister who he told me died from starvation when she was eight. Only thing I could do was start fishing through an old dumpster until I found half an egg sandwich. I tossed it to him and he looked back with a grin. That was the first time, but certainly not the last time I ever had to pick through trash. The saddest thing was I found a quarter peck of bruised apples, some bluish cheese that should have been cheddar, and I’ll be darned if it was not the best meal I’d had since I left Lowell. The next few days we lived off the garbage of a delicatessen and I thought about how much I needed something real. Seems like everyone you meet is just wandering around and hoping for something better than what they have now. Everyone has their stories about where the jobs are, so we keep moving because there’s nothing where we are now We are going up North to Oregon country right now with a couple of healthy looking college kids. They say working the woods in the summer can be good for a man besides, they pay too. All we have to do is watch out for forest fires and not go crazy but I figure if eating rotten cheese and trash could not get me, this won’t either. It’s been six months since I left Lowell and my family and I miss them. I’ve been waiting until I have good news before I write to them. I know they must be worried about me. I just hope it’s not too much longer.
By: Eric White
My name is Marc Lebel, I grew up in the industrialized city of Lowell Massachusetts. When I was 17, my father had brought the news to me that all of our money in the bank was gone and that he had lost his job working at the Saco-Lowell Machine shops because the yard was closing down and they were selling off all their textile machines to southern textile mills. I never expected he would lose his job after working for the same company for over 20 years. He and my mother moved from Canada to find work in Lowell. My mother worked in the mills making clothes and my father learned to build shuttle and spinning machines. They were able to live fairly well, save a little money and raise a family. My life as I knew it seemed to change overnight.
A month had passed by and dad was struggling to make money to put food on the table. There was no work to be found, not even manual labor. More and more people were losing their jobs. My mother was able to get a little money repairing clothes, but not enough to support our family. Among my friends, a majority of them were in the same situation as me. We would often talk about possible ways we could make money. One day my best friend Brian O’Callaghan told me that he planned to move out West to start his own life and look for a job. I had never imagined leaving my family until I received a letter from Brian saying that he was doing well living with his Uncle in Arizona working in the copper mines. He mentioned that he was making money and much happier out there. It was then I decided I had to move out, heck nothing was too big for a guy like me.
I decided to jump on the next train and get off wherever it stopped. Looking for a job was next on my list, but then again I did not even know how to ride the rails yet, I was in for a surprise. I was shocked to see kids the same age as me wearing beat up clothes hopping freights with sun burnt necks and satchels on their backs. If they had been on the rails a while they even started to look old, the degree of stink and dirt was the only true indicator of age. A lot of kids were banged up pretty bad from riding the rails and some were even permanently deformed. I had a few conversations with these kids; they said that they had been looking for jobs for a few months and barely eating enough food to survive. Some had been robbed and beaten. The older guys had secrets such as the kind of food you could find without a nickel in your pocket, and how to survive when the yards were so full of bulls you had to camp out for three days just to get a move on. I started to question whether I really wanted to follow through with my plan of traveling alone and possibly being in the same situation as them. I decided that it was too late to turn back and would follow through with my plan. I really didn’t want to go home and be a burden to my parents, they had enough problems.
One night, I met a strong intelligent man named “Jumping Jim” in the Pittsburgh rail yard. He was a black man with a white beard from North Carolina. He told me that he was looking for work in the North because there were no jobs in the South and it was not worth begging for food or shelter because people in the south were not open to letting a black man stay in their homes. At that point it sounded like a good idea to me to look for work in the South because there was less competition. However, I was pretty scared after hearing so many stories of people searching for work and getting hurt in the process. I had started to build a relationship with Jim, and decided to stick with him because he became sort of like a fatherly figure and had been riding the rails for a while. He taught me how to avoid getting caught riding rails and where to look for work. He had a knack for giving the bulls the slip in the yards. One time we were holed up in a potato freight car and we heard the bull open the next car where two other guys were hiding. He pulled them out and beat half the teeth out of a kid who could not have been more than a year older than me. The other one ran. Jim and I hid in a sack and when the ole’ bull came knocking we were still as a rock. Jim saved my life more than a couple times.
As our relationship grew stronger, I began to look after him. He could not take the starving as well as I could. When we got out West, we spent two nights in Frisco without a bite to eat. The third night my ribs were poking through and he gets to hollering about his sister who he told me died from starvation when she was eight. Only thing I could do was start fishing through an old dumpster until I found half an egg sandwich. I tossed it to him and he looked back with a grin. That was the first time, but certainly not the last time I ever had to pick through trash. The saddest thing was I found a quarter peck of bruised apples, some bluish cheese that should have been cheddar, and I’ll be darned if it was not the best meal I’d had since I left Lowell. The next few days we lived off the garbage of a delicatessen and I thought about how much I needed something real. Seems like everyone you meet is just wandering around and hoping for something better than what they have now. Everyone has their stories about where the jobs are, so we keep moving because there’s nothing where we are now
We are going up North to Oregon country right now with a couple of healthy looking college kids. They say working the woods in the summer can be good for a man besides, they pay too. All we have to do is watch out for forest fires and not go crazy but I figure if eating rotten cheese and trash could not get me, this won’t either. It’s been six months since I left Lowell and my family and I miss them. I’ve been waiting until I have good news before I write to them. I know they must be worried about me. I just hope it’s not too much longer.